Kayce – Future Midwife

I am what some people call a "birth geek". I love learning all there is about birth and how to help women achieve the birth they want. I like to think I am educating women, but I am truly educating myself. I am just learning all I can until I can become a doula and then eventually a Midwife.
If you need to reach me, please email me at heartsandhandsservices (at) gmail (dot) com

I often hear women talking about themselves, especially mothers, and saying the words “fat”, “gut”, “muffin top”. It makes me so sad.

One thing that has drawn me to helping women is how beautiful they are. Short, tall, big, small. They are all just so gorgeous.

And the women I love more than anything are mothers. Whether they had their baby a day ago or they are a great-grandma to 15. Their bodies are just aged to perfection. They have the bodies I want. The body that grew and nurtured multiple children. The body that when you look at it looks saggy and tired, but in truth is just simply beautiful.

As women, we always compare ourselves to others instead of thinking about how we *feel*. We see commercials and TV shows and covers of magazines and wonder what we are doing wrong.

When the truth is, what we are doing wrong is comparing our body to what we think the perfect body looks like.

My favorite woman’s body is the one that she is comfortable in. I can’t even begin to describe how a woman glows when she is comfortable in her own skin. With her wrinkled, sagged breasts, and her stomach that doesn’t really bounce back like when she was a teenager. The body that grew a living being. The body that nourished that being and helped it grow. The body that taught and loved and raised another person.

We, as mothers, don’t give ourselves enough credit. We see these magazine racks and the women on there with their new babies and perfect bodies and we measure ourselves and find ourselves lacking.

When in fact, the only difference is a trainer that charges $5000 an hour, and a professional with an air brush.

I see women that have just given birth to their child, and their stomach still looks pregnant, and they are tired, but they are at their most beautiful. Our bodies were made to stretch and grow. They were made to grow more beautiful with use.

Some of my favorite artwork is of big breasted, full bellied women. Just like the cavemen used to pray to. The Mother of all the Earth.

She wasn’t a skinny supermodel. She wasn’t slim or trim. She was a woman that loved with everything she had. She was a woman that bore her body with pride at what she had created and nurtured.

She is the most beautiful of all.

(courtesy of google images)

In my eyes, she is beautiful.

We shouldn’t be comparing ourselves to others. We shouldn’t be unhappy because the number on a scale isn’t what we wished we saw.

We need to learn to be comfortable in our own skin. We need to learn to be happy with the body we have, the body that grew and nurtured our children. We need to learn to love ourselves.

You are beautiful. A number on a scale or a pants size doesn’t make the mother. What makes a mother is the love she has for her children. The love she has for herself.

I haven’t posted on here in a long time. No posts I write feel right, so they sit in my drafts. I just haven’t been very inspired lately.

Since August, I have wondered why I do the work I do. I am surrounded by pregnant women, by births that seem very unlikely I will ever have. And yet I can’t stop learning and loving and being around birth.

I always wondered what drew people to their calling and lifestyles. And when I found mine, it all just clicked. Since my fourth loss, I have wondered whether this is the right place for me. If I would be able to keep going.

I have been having a hard time being happy for people I know that are pregnant, and have taken a bit of a step back from birth. I stopped doula work, stopped blogging and learning about birth for a bit. I wanted to get recentered and truly find out if this was for me.

I wanted to find out if I would be able be around pregnant women without hating myself.

And what I found out was eye opening.

We have five clients so far this year, with one more possibly on the way. And I couldn’t be more excited!

I cannot wait to see their bellies, to see their labors and births. I cannot wait to see their faces when they first hold their babies, to see their faces when they have that new baby. I cannot wait to see their glow.

I always wondered what it took for a job to be your calling. I think I found out what that means.

I think it means putting yourself last. No matter your past or your future, it includes working toward what you want with a ferocity that cannot be stopped.

When I am working with pregnant women, it isn’t about me. It’s like there is nothing in the world but them.

My losses and infertility don’t matter when I work with them. Sometimes I don’t want to go, and want to not ache to work with pregnant women, but when I am with them, I am revitalized. I am renewed.

For me, a calling is more than just a job. My calling is birth, and my own past won’t change that.